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Virtual Facets of EC/step cut diamonds

ksluice

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
May 26, 2009
Messages
537
I just read this awesome discussion on step cuts and virtual facets and it has helped me better understand my diamond preferences so much. https://www.pricescope.com/communit...so-cool-in-low-light-anyone-else.83928/page-2

Did @strmrdr ever do a class on the topic? Are there other such threads (I searched but this seemed to be the one)? I am particularly curious about the idea that virtual facets as the diamond is in motion. (The discussion in the thread about the virtual facet going from leaky to winky and it forms and unforms when the diamond moves through its tilt was a real a-ha moment for me.)

I was thinking about this when I was watching this vid on IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPqtgRzlQZu/?utm_medium=copy_link (the second vid posted illustrates the phenomenon I am curious about) Its like the crown virtual facets rains a snow storm of tiny virtual facets down. It seems like this is a slightly different that the “hall of mirrors” effect that I’ve seen some ECs create (where even when you look from an angle through the table the hall of mirrors seems to extend).

So I am wondering are these two effects part of every EC and the cut creates different balances between them? Is the prominence of windmills an indication of which way a stone will behave?

I feel sheepish asking these questions because I know answering it depends on the time and knowledge of the step cut experts on this forum, and that feels a bit like taking advantage. I am grateful for any insight or direction to other sources! TIA!!
 

tyty333

Super_Ideal_Rock
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Dec 17, 2008
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27,201
@strmdr is now the poster @Karl_K ...hopefully this will get his attention!
 

Karl_K

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The ends of an EC has more real facets interacting creating small to med. virtual facets in larger numbers in that area.
The center rotated end wise acts as it has super large virtual facets but rocked side by side they act more like med virtual facets.
This due to the long narrow shape of the virtual facets acting different depending on how they are tilted..

edit - vid shows se or near se which has a more complex vf patterns.....
more later
 
Last edited:

ksluice

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
May 26, 2009
Messages
537
Thank you both! So, in the case of this SEC because the corners are more prominent than in a rectangular EC, those smaller real facets at the corners are creating almost the crushed glass galaxy look of tiny virtual facets as the diamond is rotated long its diagonal? Is that what is happening? And so a more pronounced windmill (which I like) will produce more of this effect and may diminish the hall of mirrors look of the larger real facets making medium virtual facets?


Screen Shot 2021-06-08 at 10.45.03 AM.png Screen Shot 2021-06-08 at 10.43.54 AM.png
 

Karl_K

Super_Ideal_Rock
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difused lighting vs multiple small direct light sources activating different virtual facets.
 

ksluice

Brilliant_Rock
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May 26, 2009
Messages
537
Ah! Of course! I think I’ll go back to just accepting its magic :lol:
 

Ibrakeforpossums

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Mar 21, 2019
Messages
2,488
I just read this awesome discussion on step cuts and virtual facets and it has helped me better understand my diamond preferences so much. https://www.pricescope.com/communit...so-cool-in-low-light-anyone-else.83928/page-2

Did @strmrdr ever do a class on the topic? Are there other such threads (I searched but this seemed to be the one)? I am particularly curious about the idea that virtual facets as the diamond is in motion. (The discussion in the thread about the virtual facet going from leaky to winky and it forms and unforms when the diamond moves through its tilt was a real a-ha moment for me.)

I was thinking about this when I was watching this vid on IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPqtgRzlQZu/?utm_medium=copy_link (the second vid posted illustrates the phenomenon I am curious about) Its like the crown virtual facets rains a snow storm of tiny virtual facets down. It seems like this is a slightly different that the “hall of mirrors” effect that I’ve seen some ECs create (where even when you look from an angle through the table the hall of mirrors seems to extend).

So I am wondering are these two effects part of every EC and the cut creates different balances between them? Is the prominence of windmills an indication of which way a stone will behave?

I feel sheepish asking these questions because I know answering it depends on the time and knowledge of the step cut experts on this forum, and that feels a bit like taking advantage. I am grateful for any insight or direction to other sources! TIA!!

I'm SO far from looking from knowing what I'm looking at but that diamond looks watery and leaky in one video and very contrasty in the next. I love them both, it's so appealing, I was adding up the value of my car and appliances to see if I could afford it.
Alex is a wizard. I'm afraid of him.
 

ksluice

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
May 26, 2009
Messages
537
I'm SO far from looking from knowing what I'm looking at but that diamond looks watery and leaky in one video and very contrasty in the next. I love them both, it's so appealing, I was adding up the value of my car and appliances to see if I could afford it.
Alex is a wizard. I'm afraid of him.
Yes to all of this. But honestly that discussion Karl K put up as Strmrdr was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I was grasping something logical about why I am stuck on loving step cuts. I want to love OEC and I do when other people post them, but when I think about what I would like, I end right back with the nice legible step cuts. What I didn’t realize is how much the step cuts make, unmake, and remake themselves as you tilt them. In my smaller stone (which is even more confused because its a legacy cut), I never see anything so complex (and I thought I loved it because it was more complex with the different facet pattern on the crown) But now that I have been looking at these bigger stones at 40x magnification I am mostly just o_O.

Also Alex Park…I feel like one could accidentally mortgage one’s house.

And @Karl_K thank you for explaining what was happening, even if it made my brain give up.
 

ksluice

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
May 26, 2009
Messages
537
Is what happens in video 3 also due to in part to camera lens focal length? I feel like I’m looking at one of those Magic Eye things from the early nineties, where you had trick yourself into focusing 9” beyond the surface of the image. Like would normal in-person viewing ever do that?

Edit: I see that flat top you’re talking about.
 

Karl_K

Super_Ideal_Rock
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table glare is eye visible..any diamond with a table will create table glare at times a dirty one more often..
 
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